


now I truly understand that I don't understand a thing

by futuredescending



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Merlin, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Eggsy, M/M, Omega Harry, Trope Subversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:59:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9070684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuredescending/pseuds/futuredescending
Summary: It seemed like everything about alpha/omega pairs was purposely crafted for exclusivity. They secrete hormones and wordlessly signal each other in ways Eggsy can’t even begin to understand or pick up on. Being in the room with them is like being able to hear only one side of a conversation. Eggsy hates to interrupt in order to remind them they’ve got to dumb themselves down for not only the ignorant little pleb in the room, but a sensory blind beta as well.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sassafrasx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassafrasx/gifts).



> For sassafrasx, who wanted some non-traditional a/b/o? This is probably more subversion-leaning than outright non-traditional, ah well, but I hope you enjoy it anyhow!

Eggsy gets Merlin’s call en route to London after wrapping up a messy, three-week long mission in South Sudan. He’s dirty, exhausted, and wanting nothing more than to go home and curl up in bed, preferably with at least one warm body beside him.

“Can you stay at your mother’s for the week?” Merlin asks, dashing all of his evening plans in one fell swoop. “Harry’s gone into heat. Probably just a flash, but better to be on the safe side.”

And just like that, a brittle tension takes up residence in his body, making him feel on edge. It always seems to happen when any mention is made of anything having to do with alphas and omegas. “Sure thing, guv,” he tells Merlin, proud of how smooth his voice emerges. “Take care of him, yeah?”

“Of course.” He knows Merlin isn’t trying to be dismissive, that his mind is probably on a dozen different life-or-death matters at once, and Harry’s biological functions, sputtering into unpredictability now that he’s reached _a certain age_ , have just abruptly pushed themselves to the head of the queue. He knows that despite this...thing...he’s got going with them, as a mere beta, he has no place in this particular matter. Next to Merlin, he hasn’t got a claim on anyone at all. Not in terms of biology, certainly not in terms of history.

He _knows_ , but he still can’t help the stab of hurt he feels anyhow when Merlin promptly ends the call, leaving Eggsy to his own devices for the next seven days or so, cut off from an intimate experience, supposedly _the_ most intimate, he’s never been a part of and never will be.

 

_____

 

Roxy takes one look at his dejected expression upon opening her front door and sighs, backing up to let him in. “Alright, how long for?”

“A week, at least.” Eggsy slips past her, gives her poodle, Albert, a good scratch behind his ears, and immediately heads to the guest room, though he’s been its most frequent user by leaps and bounds that Roxy really just ought to drop all pretense designate it as his. “Thanks, Rox.”

“And what happened this time?” Roxy trails after him and leans in the doorway, watching him unpack the loose collection of his personal effects from his mission travel bag.

“Another heat.” The third one since Eggsy entered the picture.

“Didn’t he just have one?”

“Two months ago. Guess Harry’s body wants to bang a few drums on the way out.”

“Don’t be crude,” Roxy chides. “It’s a big change. Hardly an easy time for anyone.”

“Sorry.” It’s not as if he can overlook the reality that Roxy is an alpha herself and therefore possesses that born and bred sacrosanct regard for all things alpha/omega, but she’s so congenial most of the time and has never once postured in Eggsy’s presence that he often forgets they are not, in fact, equals in all things. “I don’t do well with it, as you know.”

Roxy understands, of course. Eggsy’s spilled out his secrets to her over many a bender before. He can’t go to his mum’s anymore because she’s got a new alpha in the picture, a decent bloke really, but he avoids them for the same reason he keeps his distance from Harry and Merlin during times like this, when biology holds maximum sway.

It seemed like everything about alpha/omega pairs was purposely crafted for exclusivity. They secrete hormones and wordlessly signal each other in ways Eggsy can’t even begin to understand or pick up on. Being in the room with them is like being able to hear only one side of a conversation. Eggsy hates to interrupt in order to remind them they’ve got to dumb themselves down for not only the ignorant little pleb in the room, but a sensory blind beta as well. 

It’s exhausting work, always having to remind people of what an imposition he is.

“You know,” Roxy says, not unsympathetically, but with a certain low-grade level of exasperation that informs Eggsy he’s being an idiot. “You could always, oh, I don’t know, _talk_ to Harry and Merlin about this. They’re hardly traditional.” She waves a hand at him. “Case in point.”

“Have you ever known a triad to work out in the long term?” Eggsy poses instead of acknowledging the sensibility of her words.

Roxy immediately opens her mouth, but then slowly closes it, lips pursing in troubled consideration. Eggsy’s about to declare a sort of pyrrhic victory when she brightens. “King Charles II, his wife, and one of her ladies in waiting. Lucy Hay, I believe.”

Eggsy frowns, racking his memories. The name sounded familiar from all those Kingsman history lessons during training. “Wasn’t he one of the ones who got executed for treason?”

“It was all going swimmingly before then,” Roxy tries, her voice a little strained. “Well, no, actually, I think they broke up with Lucy right before trying for children.”

“Yeah, a real happily ever after, that.” Eggsy scowls, but can’t even find it in himself to be disgruntled so much as...resigned. He throws out his arms and flings himself backwards onto the bed, wincing when the bruises smattering his back all light up to remind him of their existence. He’s been trying to fight the inevitable, after all. “Look, we all know how this one ends. So...I’m just gonna enjoy it while it lasts, right? The key is to not let myself get attached.”

He just hopes that after it all shakes out, they can still be friends.

Roxy moves to sit on the edge beside him, staring down at him sadly. “Oh Eggsy. You know it’s already far too late for that.”

Sometimes he hates it when Roxy’s right.

 

_____

 

Well, never let it be said Eggsy was one to mope, not when he and his best mate could hit the pubs as they’ve not been able to do in months.

Four hours later, he’s beginning to regret his life choices.

It’s only Roxy’s quick reflexes that keep Eggsy from tumbling into the road just as a taxi gives him a full spray of puddle when he trips over the kerb, trying to push Roxy away after she’d been helping him walk out of the pub, belligerently shouting, “Sober as a judge!”

Eggsy blinks and tries to shake the icy water from his now sodden clothes. On the plus side, the close call manages to sober him just enough to be aware of the painfully low depths to which he’s sunk.

“This is all I am!” he hysterically says to Roxy. “I might as well go sit in that fucking puddle until I die. It’s where I belong.”

The taxi successfully waved down, Roxy remains unimpressed. “I knew this was a bad idea,” she says to the universe at large before taking firm hold of his shoulders and employing her not inconsiderable strength in stuffing him into the back and wrangling him into a seat belt.

“Hey, you know what’s a good idea?”

“Oh no.” Roxy eyes him warily. “Eggsy, no—”

“—We should go see how Harry’s doing. See how he’s holding up.” Buoyed by his stroke of genius, Eggsy turns to the driver. “To Arthur’s house, please.”

“Eggsy, it’s a civilian cab.”

“Is it?” Eggsy turns to scrutinise his surroundings and the somewhat bemused driver more closely. “So it is. Good eye, Rox.”

“Eggsy, I don’t think that’s—”

“—Stanhope Mews South on Gloucester Road then.”

“Very good, sir.” The driver nods and pulls the cab onto the street.

Roxy throws up her hands and sinks back into the seats. “I’ve a feeling I’m going to regret this.”

 

_____

 

To their collective surprise, it’s Harry who answers his door when Eggsy braces his precariously balanced body against it and begins pounding with his fist, nearly falling over when his foundation is robbed from beneath him until Roxy shoots out a hand and scruffs the collar of his coat.

“Ah, you’ve found him.”

Harry appears mostly collected and clear eyed for an omega in the throes of heat, dressing gown tied tightly around his trim waist, entirely unbothered to the fact that his employees, including said young inebriated lover and his exasperated best mate, have unexpectedly showed up on his doorstep. The touch of colour to his cheeks and beads of sweat darkening his temples, however, still give away the fact that it isn’t entirely over just yet.

At Roxy’s confused look, Harry explains, “We’ve been trying to get a hold of him all night to tell him to come home.”

“Eggsy, look at your phone,” Roxy hisses before fishing around in Eggsy’s coat pocket to retrieve the item in question, holding it up to show him the string of missed calls, voicemails, and texts lining the screen. “Didn’t you even check once?”

Eggsy squints at his phone, appearing confused by its betrayal. “Huh.”

“Yes, well, I think I can take him from here,” Harry says dryly, reaching out to take Eggsy by the shoulders and coax him past the threshold. Eggsy goes easily, ending up face planting in Harry’s chest and staying there, not that Harry appears to mind. “Best if you remain outside, though, Roxy as I’m still not...and Merlin’s still a bit….” Harry waved an ambiguous hand in the air, then curled his fingers to pantomime a claw, his features twisting into a mockery of a silent growl before rolling his eyes. “I’m sure you’re aware of how it can be.”

“Right,” Roxy says, taking a hasty step back, though giving Eggsy one more worried glance. “He’s a bit….”

“I know,” Harry assures her. “I’ve already had words with Merlin.”

That’s good enough to mollify Roxy. She’ll bring over the rest of Eggsy’s things in the morning. “Then I best leave you to it. Goodnight, sir. Please be kind to him.”

Harry looks at her askance as if she’d just presented him with a suit made in a polyester blend and gently cups the back of Eggsy's head. “I couldn’t bear to be anything else.”

 

_____

 

Eggsy wakes up on the familiar comfort of Harry’s couch with a terrible hangover and a mouth that feels as if something small and furry had crawled inside of it to die. He fears opening his mouth just in case he vomits up said animal and tempts Harry into having it stuffed too.

“Water. Tablets.” Said cool glass is pressed against his cheek, which feels wonderful.

“Thanks,” Eggsy croaks, peeking out from his nest of blanket to accept the glass and meds, then sitting up and taking measured sips to quell his uneasy stomach. When he feels certain it’s not going to rebel anytime soon, he speaks again. “That wasn’t my proudest moment. Sorry.”

“It wasn’t, was it?” Harry agrees, settling down in the nearby chair.

He’s freshly showered, Eggsy notes, eyeing his still wet slicked back hair, though Harry hasn’t bothered with getting dressed for the day, which means he still doesn’t feel ready to go out, which means...ah, there. Eggsy can see that Harry’s eyes are still slightly glazed, skin already starting to get a bit dewy.

“Fuck, I should get going,” Eggsy says. “You’re obviously not out of the woods yet. It was stupid of me to even show up.”

“Nonsense. I’m through the worst of it, but even if I weren’t, it wouldn’t change how I feel, Eggsy.”

Eggsy blinks, brows furrowing. “But you’re in heat. Only Merlin can—”

Harry shuts him up by leaning forward and taking up one of Eggsy’s hands in his slightly clammy own. “That doesn’t mean I still don’t want you here. This is your home, you’re a part of this every bit as much as Merlin and I.”

“But you sent me away,” Eggsy whispers, the hurt he’d been trying so hard to wrestle back down rising helplessly to the surface.

“So about that...” comes a new voice. Merlin shuffles into the room, taking a tentative seat next to Eggsy and looking as chastened as Eggsy’s ever seen him. “It seems my good intentions were misguided, and I’m terribly sorry for that, lad.”

“It makes sense though.” Eggsy frowns. “You being all possessive around your omega in heat.”

“That sort of behaviour was reserved for when we were younger, more foolish, and brimming with hormones,” Harry says, arching a brow at Merlin, who somehow manages to grow more sheepish under Harry’s stern gaze. “God knows we’re both old enough to control ourselves better by now, and especially around someone we both love.”

“And you not being another alpha does help,” Merlin admits before his shoulders sink just a little bit more. “I didn’t trust myself, at least until Harry came up from the haze in time to see me to a good bollicking.”

Harry moves from his chair to sit on Eggsy’s other side, raising a hand to Eggsy’s cheek to sooth away the tense lines Eggsy’s body. “There are no others I want with me while I get through this last bit of useless biological function.”

“Ever the romantic, our Harry,” Merlin remarks.

“It’s tedious and there are far too many fluids involved for my liking,” Harry complains. “I’ll be relieved when I’m finally done with it for good.”

“Me too. His heats are also bloody inconvenient. I can hear my paperwork growing on my desk,” Merlin adds mournfully. “It’ll take me weeks to get it back under control.”

It’s almost too good to be true. Eggsy wishes he could shut up and simply accept it, but him and his stupid big mouth aren’t through yet. “But I’m not an alpha...I’ll hardly be able to satisfy your….”

“You forget, darling, that I’m fast approaching my dotage.” Harry smirks. “And hardly require the same level of alpha pheromones as I once did. As I said before, the worst of it is behind us, and Merlin’s seen to that.”

“What Harry means to say,” Merlin says in his ear, causing Eggsy to shiver, “is that right now, he’s merely at a slightly above-average level of randy and he’s missed you. We both have.”

“The only good part about all of this,” Harry adds, suddenly sliding into Eggsy’s lap, grinding his arse down into Eggsy’s crotch in frustratingly slow revolutions that chase away the last vestiges of his hangover, “is how wet and ready I am at nearly all times.”

It’s only when the front of his jeans begin to grow damp that Eggsy realises Harry hasn’t got on anything beneath his dressing gown. He can’t smell what’s been described as an intoxicating scent, but the liquid heat being teased over his groin is alluring enough on its own. “Fuck,” he hisses, hands clutching Harry’s hips to keep him moving over his stiffening cock. “Oh god, I think I fell in a puddle earlier. That can’t be sanitary.”

“He’s your ridiculous problem for now,” Merlin tells Harry, leaning forward to give each of them a fond kiss. “Have fun. I need to go sleep for a week. I think I pulled a muscle in my groin.”

“We’ll let him nap for a few hours,” Harry says benevolently once Merlin disappears up the stairs. “And then I want you both to fuck me at the same time.”

“Jesus, Harry,” Eggsy breathes, trying not to embarrass himself by shooting off there and then. “The mouth on you.”

“Might as well take full advantage of this one last hurrah.” Harry smiles triumphantly and there isn’t an ounce of shame in it nor in the way he sneaks a hand down to cup Eggsy’s cock and give it an encouraging squeeze.

“Ah, ah, puddle!” Eggsy reminds him.

“Then let’s get you out of these dirty clothes and into something much, much filthier,” Harry promises.

 

_____

 

Many exhausting hours later, when Eggsy lies, chest heaving and sweat slick and _sore_ , on one side of a practically purring Harry while Merlin lies on the other in much the same unravelled state, he manages to say through his gasps, “Alright. That was...that was real good, yeah? But I don’t know how you can do this for days. I think I can officially say I don’t envy alphas anymore.”

“Too bad,” Merlin says. “If he still has another in him down the line, you’re helping out.”

“Shit,” Eggsy says as Harry stirs and slides his knee against Eggsy’s very spent cock to give it a few slow nudges. Traitor that it is, it twitches hopefully. Eggsy grunts. “Again? Really?”

“Stop complaining. You’re still young,” Harry admonishes as he moves to straddle him and sighs in contentment at the feeling of a slowly hardening cock beneath him. “Bless your short refractory period. It trumps alpha pheromones every time.”

“I’ll see if I can scrounge us up some lunch,” Merlin says brightly, leaning past Harry to give Eggsy a consoling pat on the cheek. “You’re going to need it.”

Eggsy’s reply is lost when Harry leans down to occupy his mouth in a thoroughly distracting, searing kiss as he sinks blissfully down upon Eggsy’s length once more.


End file.
